Mitt Romney doesn't intend to overturn Obama's policies on homosexuals in the military. He doesn't intend to end Obamacare, and his Republican friends in Congress just fully funded it via the continuing resolution. He doesn't intend to overturn Obama's illegal usurpation/amnesty for illegal aliens. He fiercely supports the unconstitutional entitlement programs that are the centerpieces of the New Deal and the Great Society. He supports the judicial supremacist abortion on demand status quo. Like Obama, he panders to the Islamists, apparently hoping the crocodile will eat him last. Bottom line? He's an echo, not a legitimate choice for conservatives.-- Tom Hoefling, October 3, 2012

...The latest possible trial balloon came this past Monday in an interview with Larry Kudlow. In that discussion, Romney relates the situation in Aurora, Colorado to his time in Massachusetts when he was able to ban weapons such as the AR15, one of America's favorite sporting rifles.

First, he consistently affirms RomneyCare, the massive government intrusion into healthcare that was the blueprint for Obama's massive government intrusion into healthcare. Sadly, Romney's health care plan included many items absolutely unacceptable to social conservatives. His continuing support for his program has many conservatives legitimately wondering if he intends merely to "fix" ObamaCare. Perhaps he thinks it would be better if just a little more in his own image.

Next, and only this past April, was Mitt Romney's support for gay couples. Compounding that problem was his assertion that gay couples should be allowed to adopt children. There are compounding problems with that, too. Mitt Romney has long had a special relationship with the gay-agenda wing of both parties. He has in the past given those advocates special assurances that he is the man they want in office. Just this past week, when Obama permitted military uniforms to be worn in a gay pride parade, there was no protest from Mitt Romney that this author can find. (Since pro-life chaplains can't march in pro-life parades in uniform, one wonders at the double standard.) To cap this off, during the debates, Romney indicated he was just fine with permitting open homosexuality in our military.

Now we have the governor who instituted strict gun control on "offensive weapons" reaffirming that decision. But that is not the critical part of the message.

Mitt Romney actually said on Monday -- this past Monday -- that when he can get legislators to agree on gun control, then "that's the kind of legislation I like."!

I can't help but dissect "that's the kind of legislation I like." What does that mean? Does it mean he's all in favor of signing gun control legislation if he can get legislators to originate it? That way, of course, he wouldn't be the only one taking the heat.

Does that mean that he doesn't really have a core value opposing gun control, that he'll sign on if he's not the only one with his neck on the line?

Trial Balloon or undisciplined comment?

You be the judge. But, you also better be careful, and make sure Romney never has a large enough group of RINOs to team with democrats to bring him gun control legislation.

"Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts," Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1..."These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people."

The real news in Mitt Romney’s interview with Mark Halperin, as Charles Pierce points out, is that Romney openly repudiated the central argument his party has been making against [Alleged] President Obama for the last three years: that he spent too much money and therefore deepened the economic crisis. Indeed Romney himself had been making this very case as recently as a week ago (“he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of dollars to the companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined. The consequence is that we are enduring the most tepid recovery in modern history.”) But in his Halperin interview, Romney frankly admits that reducing the budget deficit in the midst of an economic crisis would be a horrible idea:

Halperin: You have a plan, as you said, over a number of years, to reduce spending dramatically. Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course.

Just a few years ago, House Republicans were trying to etch their opposition of gay marriage into the Constitution.

Now? They’re almost silent.

It’s been one of the swiftest shifts in ideology and strategy for Republicans, as they’ve come nearly full circle on same-sex politics. What was once a front-and-center issue for rank-and-file Republicans — the subject of many hotly worded House and Senate floor speeches — is virtually a dead issue, as Republicans in Congress don’t care to have gay marriage litigated in the Capitol.

Even more than that, Republican leadership has evolved, too. It has quietly worked behind the scenes to kill amendments that reaffirm opposition to same-sex unions, several sources told POLITICO.

It’s not like the GOP has become a bastion of progressiveness on gay rights, but there has been an evolution in the political approach — and an acknowledgment of a cultural shift in the country. Same-sex relationships are more prominent and accepted. There are more gay public figures — including politicians — and it’s likely that many Washington Republicans have gay friends and coworkers. Just as important — there’s also a libertarian streak of acceptance on people’s sexuality coursing through the House Republican Conference.

“In one decade, what’s shocking on TV is accepted as commonplace in the other,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a veteran of the culture wars of the 1990s. “It’s the same with sexual mores all over that if you look at campuses and universities, they have a lot of gay pride clubs and so there has been a deliberate and effective outreach to the younger generation about being more accepting of same-sex relationships.”

But there’s also a political strategy at work: The economy has displaced moral issues in today’s politics. Ask most House Republicans today if they have deep convictions about gay relationships, and it hardly registers.

“I personally have deep convictions about my children having a financially stable country that they can live in,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said in an interview. “I want my daughters to have the opportunities that I had, and that’s what concerns me. That’s what keeps me up awake at night, not worrying about who’s sleeping with who.”

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a 32-year veteran of Congress, never a man of many words, simply said, “I don’t hear it discussed much.”

-----National party operatives have taken notice. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions all did fundraisers in the 2010 cycle with the national gay and lesbian GOP grass-roots organization, Log Cabin Republicans.

The group’s Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper said that while the three party leaders got flak for doing the events, they stood their ground.

“Twenty years ago they would have thrown us under the bus,” Cooper said. The group recently hosted a 40th birthday fundraiser for Priebus.

Even among the most conservative ranks there has been some softening. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) — who holds a 93 percent lifetime score with the American Conservative Union — recently attended a Log Cabin Republican meeting in Houston. Poe’s office said his “views on same-sex marriage have not changed, however, he found that there were plenty of things they did agree on and he really enjoyed listening to what they had to say.”

-----Leadership, too, has played a role. At the top levels of House Republican leadership, aides have tried to “quell” legislative proposals on the sanctity of marriage.

Republicans worried about their party’s standing with Hispanic voters have launched an election-year scramble to put a better face on their party’s immigration problem.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is working with senators from other immigrant-heavy states like Jon Kyl of Arizona and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas on their own version of the DREAM Act to help undocumented children. Kyl and Hutchison have held several closed-door meetings with a key Democrat to see whether there’s bipartisan support for a compromise plan. Republicans are also exploring changes in visa rules to attract more high-skilled workers and tourists. But above all, key Republicans are pushing a change in rhetoric, urging Mitt Romney to shift tactics away from the strident comments he’s made during the primary season in hopes of convincing Hispanic voters that Republicans will give immigrants a fair deal.

'Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.'

Tom Hoefling on Government:

"Just as 'good fences make for good neighbors,' good government is mainly about knowing where the legitimate boundaries are, and having the courage to defend those borders forcefully. This is true in terms of the defense of our territory, our security, and our national sovereignty, but it also applies to the sworn duty of all of those in government to equally protect the God-given, unalienable rights of each individual person, from their creation onward, their sacred obligation to stay well within the enumerated powers of our constitutions, and of the role legitimate government must play in balancing the competing rights and interests of the people, in order to establish justice."